Pamela Anderson Gets Treatment For Hepatitis C

[badbradley]

Pamela Anderson is being treated for Hepatitis C. http://www.people.com/article/pamela-anderson-hepatitis-c-cure-within-month

[Onefluover]

Well good for Pamela! I was wondering what her status was on the new treatments. I bet she doesn't get anymore tattoos though...

She claimed that she had contracted Hep C from a tattoo. I cannot speak to that because I was not there to see how the tattoo was applied but I will say this:

I was on the advisory committee that created the Oregon Tattoo Regulations. Toughest in the nation and template for most of the rest of the states that now regulate at the state level.

I built and owned one of the largest and most successful tattoo empires in the world, with shops in Oregon, Colorado and Florida. All but three of the original shops going back 25 years are still open. Roughly 250,000 tattoos done in my shops. So I know a little bit about this subject.

Years ago, well before I entered the industry, gloves were not common and were even then often only used to keep the artists hands from getting ink stained. Autoclaves were a luxury for the most modern shops. Needle bars were repeatedly reused, with or without autoclave sterilization. Tattoo tubes likewise. Ink caps were often cleaned and reused. (They will melt in the autoclave.) Some of the very old-school artists even used wooden tube grips. In Russian prisons they made ink out of burnt shoe soles and piss - excuse me, urine. Yeah.

Folks, this was all a very long time ago but still within our lifetimes. Without question Hepatitis C, among other blood-borne pathogens, has been transmitted via tattoos in high numbers and very well may be the source of infection for many of you older members and guests who can find no other possible way of having acquiring this silent killer. But in modern times of adhered-to rules and regulations, universal safety and sanitation practices/techniques, unless the artist and operatory are utterly gross with negligence, it is virtually impossible to transmit Hep C via a tattoo procedure.

80,000 people a year (US) die as a result of medical personnel simply not washing their hands adequately or frequently enough.

Tattoo artists and tattoo facilities have dramatically cleaned up their act and this goes back well before I entered the industry. The concept of a clean and safe tattoo is simple. Adherence to the modern rules is key.

Pamela Anderson very well may have gotten infected from her tattoo. Since that tattoo was done post-modern era, in my opinion it is unlikely.

[badbradley]

How Pam Got Hep C...


http://www.salon.com/2002/05/03/npfri_91/

[Onefluover]

Ah ha! I see. Now I know how she got it! And it wasn't from the tattoo artist. No tattoo artist -not even a "scratcher" goes through the trouble of putting together a mobile kit (which must include numerous items to do even one tattoo) and puts only one needle bar in it. There are several reasons why. And what wealthy famous celebrity gets tattooed in a hotel? The very act of getting the tattoo means they like attention and there's plenty of Hollywood tattoo shops they can (proudly) proclaim they got their work from by so-and-so.

I knew Mike Berk. I witnessed a garbage truck hit his SUV (Berk 1) in Burbank and his Bay Watch camera fly through the window at my feet as the garbage truck sped off. I ID'ed the truck. Through him I met some of the cast... Let me just say I'm still skeptical she acquired it from a tattoo.

But I do wish her well in her treatment.

[sapphire101]

I have always assumed that the Hollywood rocker celebs with HCV would be way ahead of the rest of us in regards to treatments. It really surprises me that Pamela Anderson was not first in line for the direct acting antivirals. Where were her entourage and health care practitioners? Why did they not assist and educate her?

I hope she will reveal more such as the type of treatment she is on etc.
All the best to her and her journey to SVR.

No matter what your status, health is the great equalizer.

[Mugwump]

How she acquired the disease is completely irrelevant. It is sad the way that we associate HCV as being a self inflicted wound and is a large part of the reasons why there is not enough of a strong social movement to eradicate the disease and educate the public about it!

Sad

Eric Reesor

[Onefluover]

You are correct. How she aquired it is irrelevant to the questions of hers and others treatments. My digging into this centers more around the feelings that she very well may have used her power of stardom to falsely harm an entire industry. One that I was heavily into at the time and so know much about the repercussions of her comments.

I, personally, believe that I myself was infected via one of two differant courses of Hep B vaccine. I cannot prove it (at least as yet) but there is some scientific evidence that it well may be true. Me claiming that I think I may have gotten it from a vaccine isn't much differant than her claiming she got hers from a tattoo except that I claim I think I may while she asserts that she did in the face of established norms amongst the tattoo industry that make her claims unreasonable and probebly not true. For all we know, she could have gotten it from the same batch of vaccine as I.

I know people in the medical and pharmaceutical industry don't like to hear me say these things but I also notice how quick many of them are to blame tattoos and hence artists for the spread.

If Pamela Anderson was not in fact infected by an incompetent tattoo artist then she missed a golden oppertunity to bring about some helpful awareness that many of us were infected by an unknown and not necessarily self-inflicted cause.

Instead she squandered it on blaming some unknown tattoo artist that she's yet to identify or publicly chastise. It not only harmed a multi billion dollar industry, it also harmed our cause here.

I will eat my words if she provides the artist willing to admit he did this to her.

My point is exactly your point. That this is not a gay/heroin/tattoo disease and regardless if it were or not it is still worthy of the same compassion and expenditures as all the other diseases.

[Mugwump]

Sorry but I might very well have acquired HCV in 1970 by a backroom tattoo artist that had an autoclave but reused inks if he could not order in enough. He had no business license. However I may have acquired it later through IV drug use.

This certainly does not mean all of today's reputable practitioners are dangerous but there are still some people on the fringes who do stupid things.
 
Then if I dig back far enough in my memory I remember being vaccinated by a multiple injection gun in school  when I was 6 years old. They did us in a long line kids all at once in Saulte St Marie Ontario where we received a mass vaccination session in 1958 or early 59.  I think it might have been part of an efficacy test done by the government on some school aged children, because I can keenly remember my mother having to sign me up for the vaccinations.
This was long before the use of these devices was banned by in Canada, in fact I think the device was very new at the time. Two years later a school mate died of a mysterious case of hep that happened to only him in his family and no one else in the same house hold. I have experienced immune skin reactions since I was about 12 years of age and also unexplained flu like symptom on rare occasions.

So if I dig back just maybe I was a carrier from childhood! But chances are that I acquired the disease in my late teens due to IV drug use. So I will go with that for a cause because it is the one with the highest probability of being when I was actually infected.

Like I said certainty about how and who gave you the disease is a curse and there must be some sensible thinking here. 
Eric

[FutureThinker]

The stigma associated with this deadly disease has got to stop.  There are too many millions of lives around the world at risk here for us to get all wrapped up in the how vs. the need to cure. FT